Month: February 2019

“Central Park Five” is a documentary that was directed by Ken Burns. This film shows society the story of 5 teenagers that were wrongfully accused, persecuted, and jailed for almost their whole adolescent to adult life. It all started in 1989 when Trisha Melli was attacked and raped in Central Park at night. When arriving to the crime scene, police didn’t find much evidence (at that specific time). Originally every case starts with a suspect list that gets narrowed down to the actual criminal. Who would’ve thought that Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam would be convicted based off of no evidence. It was as if police had no other leads and decided to pressure young, unknowledgeable boys into confessing. The confession itself was deceiving because they were under the impression that by confessing to something, anything, they individually would be released. Plant these thoughts into any wrongfully accused, unaware teenage boy, you’ll get them to sign and say anything. Im not entirely sure how they were jailed simply based on a confession that didn’t even match between the five of them. They ended up serving their full roles, until another man Matias Reyes confessed. He is a serial rapist who’s DNA matches the one at the crime scene. Its so interesting to see how media and influence plays a role in law enforcement. Its still mind boggling to see that the police force would go for a suspect that “fits the description” of a criminal instead of actually trying to make society safer and looking for the actual criminal. On top of everything, race plays a role in convicting felons because instead of leading an investigation with matching DNA to evidence, police lead with ‘instinct’ and who looks like they fit the description of the crime.

Its always interesting to watch a documentary about a trial because it feels like your trying to solve the case yourself before the documentary tells you the final verdict. Specifically in this case I was bouncing back and forth between my own opinions because I kept changing my mind. In the initial description of the crime, the 911 phone call, the pictures of the body, and the condition of the house… I was so sure that the son and his friend committed the crime. As soon as their pictures were introduced to the equation it was an instant change of opinion. I couldn’t believe (based on their looks) that they could do something so cruel.

While finding out more about the case, it was mainly a bubble of assumptions made about Rafay and Burns and why they are the perfect criminals. Instead of looking at evidence and figuring out what could’ve been a motive, they did the opposite. The detectives first made Rafay and Burns the best suspects. Following that they only paid attention to the “most important evidence” which was basically the evidence pointing to the boys. It was very hard to determine whether the boys being guilty was a mistake or not. Based on the documentary, it was as if the police through every piece of evidence at them. Likewise, they didn’t look into other possible suspects or take anyone seriously when they proposed for another investigation to be carried out.

Overall, I still wouldn’t know who committed these murders just because the trial itself was all about persuasion, who told the best story, and who appeared to have the most incentive. Even when putting myself in Rafay and Burns’ shoes, I don’t think I would’ve caved if I was innocent, but then again there was so much pressure being put on the situation that maybe they felt like they had no other choice.

By definition rape is forcibly carrying out sexual activity against an individual without their consent. It usually involves physically harming the victim in the process. Rape is almost always done to female victims and the descriptions of the reports, in my opinion, are somewhat insulting for the victim. Even though in this day and age women can “wear or act however they want” its not completely true because people still unintentionally go back to the mentality from older time periods. In most of the rape cases or stories, the description of the woman herself is included (sometimes for an underlying affect on public when it comes down to trying to figure out an incentive for the crime). It may not only be for context, but it includes her attire as if whatever her choice of clothing was, made it a reason why she was raped. In the end, the guilty party is the one at fault. People make the assumption that covering yourself, or making sure you don’t draw attention to yourself, or if you don’t wear gaudy attire… nothing would happen to you. In reality these sex offenders are just sick people who choose whoever they want. In their minds a pretty girl will always differ from case to case and we can’t stick a label on rape victims. Throughout Didion’s writing, many cases were included and the victims not only varied in looks, but also age, race, occupation…etc. How could it be justifiable for people to say that an eight year old drew attention to herself the same way a grown woman did. Overall, based on the compilation of cases the rapists end up talking about the actions they completed and how it all went down. Rarely do we get to hear why they did it and how they feel getting caught or even whether they feel guilt.

The way that this essay started quickly made me feel a connection with the writer. It was more than an initial understanding about what was being said, rather, I agreed with her perception about drawing conclusions when first meeting someone. I actually was able to visualize an instance when I underwent the same emotions and series of observations.

First impressions can’t even be truly accurate because people usually tend to show their different sides depending on whose surrounding them. The idea of ‘judging a book by its cover’ is interesting because in one aspect people can be viewed as hypocrites when they claim to fully follow this phrase. Its inevitable for us to “judge” someone or something at any given time, whether its the first time or on a different occasion. We naturally have the tendency to observe people and draw conclusions whether they are always right at first or not.

We also need to take into account whether we are judging a physical person that is in front us or if we are looking at their posts (basically what they choose to show is from their social media). In my opinion social media may be an accurate depiction of one event but not about the whole person. They usually are only showing us what they think is the best or most praise worthy or most interesting parts of their lives. Even the quantity or relevance of your followers reflects on how one would interact with them. Its very common that a large percentage of followers are acquaintances or friends of friends or maybe even strangers. Social media opens the door for people to “follow” what your doing but probably haven’t or would never come up to you in person and actually introduce themselves. Overall, there are many instances and ways that Caroll’s essay addresses the different aspects of first impressions, but ‘judging a book by its cover’ seems most relevant to me.